Deleted scene from DARK LOVER. **WARNING: mild plot spoilers ahead.
This scene was altered from this, its original form, during DARK LOVER's
revision process. The concern was that it went just a little too far.
If you're so inclined, let me know if you think it did.
This takes place about three quarters of the way through the novel...

Mr. X waited for the answer, surprised by how much he cared about what
it was going to be.

“I want to work for you.”

Mr. X smiled. “That’s good, son. That’s real good.”

“So what do I have to do? Are there papers I have to fill out for
the Academy?”

“It’s a bit more involved than that. And the Academy isn’t
really going to be your employer.”

“But I thought you said-”

“Billy, there are a few more things you’re going to have to
understand. And there’s the little detail of an initiation.”

“You mean hazing? Because that’s no problem. I’ve been
through a couple already. For football.”

“It’s a little more hard core than that, I’m afraid.
But don’t worry, I got through it and I know you’ll do fine.
I’ll tell you what you have to bring with you and I’ll be
by your side. The whole time.”
After all, watching the Omega go to work was not something to be missed.

“Sensei, I, ah...” Riddle cleared his throat. “I just
want you to know, I’m not going to let you down.”

Mr. X smiled slowly, thinking this was the very best part of his job.

He stood up and approached Billy. Putting a hand on Riddle’s shoulder,
he squeezed the bones and stared into the wide, blue eyes that met his.

Billy slipped nicely into a trance.

Mr. X leaned forward and carefully removed Riddle’s hoop earring.
Then he took the soft lobe between his thumb and forefinger, massaging
it.

His voice was low and quiet.

“I want you to call and tell your father that you are moving out
effective immediately. Tell him that you’ve found a job and that
you are going into an intensive training program.”

Mr. X took off Riddle’s stainless steel Rolex and then pulled the
collar of the guy’s shirt open. He reached inside, following the
platinum chain Billy wore around to the back. He released the necklace,
sliding the links free until he captured them in his palm. The metal was
warm from laying against skin.

“When you speak with your father, you will remain calm no matter
what he says to you. You will reassure him that your future is a promising
one and that you have been chosen out of many applicants for a very important
role. You will tell him that he may always reach you on your cell phone,
but that it will be impossible for him to see you as you will be traveling.”

Mr. X ran his hand over Billy’s chest, feeling the pads of muscle,
the warmth of life, the hum of youth. Such power in this body, he thought.
Such marvelous force. Though it would fade soon enough, now the strength
was peaking.

He paused to circle one of the nipples he encountered.

Billy jerked in response and Mr. X looked down, repeating the caress,
watching the front of Riddle’s shorts grow tight. Mr. X measured
the reaction for a moment and then took his hand further south, until
he got to the hardening flesh. He moved his hand over Billy’s length,
envying the response. Missing the feel of that heat.

“You will not mention the Academy. You will not reveal my identity.
And you will not tell him that you are coming to live with me.”

Moving around so he stood behind Billy, he slipped his hand into Riddle’s
shorts. Billy’s breath broke as his flesh was gripped and Mr. X
remembered what that felt like, that first magical touch of a new lover.
The anticipation. The thick power concentrated between the legs, the urge
to come warring with the delicious pain of delay.

God, he missed being with women. Missed the feel of softness under him,
all that pleasure, that release.

Mr. X spoke right into Billy’s ear. “You will tell your father
that you are sorry for all the evil things you did. You will tell him
that you love him. And then I will pick you up and take you away.”

He eased Billy back, so that he was supporting Riddle’s weight on
his chest. He held on to Billy, stroking him, cradling him, until Riddle’s
last orgasm came in for a landing. Mr. X felt the rushing pulses as his
own, remembering what it had been like to be in a lover’s embrace,
remembering that wonderful closeness, yearning for it in a way he hadn’t
when he’d been a man.

As Billy breathed heavily, sagging in peaceful surrender, Mr. X remembered
his own induction ceremony. And for a brief, passing instant, he wished
that he’d thought more carefully about the offer he’d accepted
decades ago.

He’d be an old man now. An old man with grandchildren, maybe, if
he’d ever found a woman he could have stood to be around for any
length of time. And he would have had an average life, maybe worked at
one of the paper mills or at a gas station. He would have been one of
a hundred million other anonymous men who were bitched at by their wives
and who drank with their buddies and who passed their precious days in
a haze of ambient dissatisfaction because they were nothing special.

But he would have been alive.

As he felt Riddle soften in his palm, he wondered whether he had in fact
come out on the money side of the exchange. Because he was no longer his
own man. He was a servant of the Omega’s whims. The top servant,
as it were, but a servant none the less.

And he would never be mourned.

Either because he never stopped breathing. Or because no one would miss
him after he took his last lungful.

Mr. X frowned.

Not that any of that mattered, however. Because there was no going back.
Which was something Riddle was going to learn first hand tonight.

Mr. X released Riddle’s mind and body.

“So are we clear?” he said softly.

Billy nodded, dazed. He looked down at himself as if wondering what had
happened.